{"id":635,"date":"2009-12-22T07:37:12","date_gmt":"2009-12-22T12:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/takingawalk\/?p=635"},"modified":"2009-12-22T07:37:12","modified_gmt":"2009-12-22T12:37:12","slug":"great-meals-the-southland-restaurant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/takingawalk\/2009\/12\/great-meals-the-southland-restaurant\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Meals: The Southland Restaurant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>by Dwayne Phillips<\/p>\n<p>Hills and turns. Up and down, back and forth. Such a road is great for driving a sports car, but terrible for walking &#8211; especially with a bicycle (<a href=\"http:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/takingawalk\/2009\/10\/but-how-do-youlogistics\/\">see how I had to walk with a bicycle for three weeks<\/a> ). It isn&#8217;t so much physically exhausting as it is mentally and emotionally.<\/p>\n<p>I was drained at 3 PM on a Friday afternoon after a day of hills and turns. I passed through Cottondale, Alabama on my way to the motel for the evening. I stopped at a local place called The Southland Restuarant. It looked like a good place to drink a cup of afternoon coffee and eat a desert.<\/p>\n<p>It was the perfect place to drink a cup of afternoon coffee and eat a desert.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t remember exactly what the desert was. I guess that is because I never understood what the waitress said it was. It had coconut in it; I knew that for sure.<br \/>\nI sat there for maybe an hour sipping my cup of afternoon coffee plus a refill, contemplating another desert (I resisted), and plotting in my journal via my iPhone maps.<\/p>\n<p>I remember that I was searching for a motel somewhere between Tuscaloosa and Livingston. Internet searches had shown me nothing. My iPhone search found a Comfort Inn near Eutaw. I cannot explain how thrilling it was to find a Comfort Inn near Eutaw. That motel would save me 70 miles of driving.<\/p>\n<p>That thrill is one of the things that made taking a walk so much fun. Little things like finding a motel, sipping coffee, and eating a desert that had coconut in it and who knows what else on an afternoon when you didn&#8217;t think you could think about anything.<\/p>\n<p>This is supposed to be an entry about a great meal. Well, I didn&#8217;t eat a meal at The Southland Restaurant as it was too early in the afternoon and I was too hot and tired to eat a meal. This looked like a restuarant that would serve a great meal. Everyone was wearing a University of Alabama football jersey. Cottondale isn&#8217;t far from the University of Alabama, so that made sense. The kitchen smelled good, the waitresses looked like they would serve good food, the menu looked good, there was a manager walking about talking to customers. These are all signs of a great meal. Besides, how could a place called The Southland with a capital &#8220;T&#8221; in &#8220;The&#8221; not serve great meals?<\/p>\n<p>I was to walk through Cottondale the next day. I looked forward to eating a meal at The Southland. Rats, they were closed on Saturday and Sunday. I never had the chance to eat there. Maybe one day. I hope so and I may even learn what else was in that desert in addition to coconut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Dwayne Phillips Hills and turns. Up and down, back and forth. Such a road is great for driving a sports car, but terrible for walking &#8211; especially with a bicycle (see how I had to walk with a bicycle for three weeks ). It isn&#8217;t so much physically exhausting as it is mentally and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[144,112,110],"class_list":["post-635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alabama","tag-food","tag-resta","tag-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/takingawalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/takingawalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/takingawalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/takingawalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/takingawalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/takingawalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":636,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/takingawalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions\/636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/takingawalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/takingawalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/takingawalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}